Thursday, May 22, 2014

Breaking: Senior Vice President of Doctoring

It's a job description for "Senior Vice President of Doctoring", being advertised by the American Board of Internal Medicine.  Remarkably, the position requires no patient care whatsoever. 

It's interesting how history repeats.

If you wonder why your health care costs are so high, consider what's happening in our new era of highly-paid Physician Inquisitors.

-Wes

1 comment:

RD said...

Dr. Wes,

It is indeed an interesting phenomenon that in the new healthcare system, taking care of patients plays second fiddle to administrating, politicking, and mandating.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/18/sunday-review/doctors-salaries-are-not-the-big-cost.html

I’d be willing to bet that the SVPD position pays better than seeing patients as well.

After reading this job description, its hard to say exactly what the SVPD is intended to do, other than advance ABIM’s mission (read: crack skulls over MOC).

Not only are clinicians now sandwiched in the hierarchical pyramid, an outcome of increasing employment by hospitals and large practice groups, but the organizations intended to advance clinician interests are trying to eke ever more money out of them (MOC).

Physicians who retire themselves from clinical practice to take high paying administrative jobs are part of the problem, not the solution in my opinion.

We need effective political organizations to influence on behalf of clinicians and patients, not on behalf of the bottom line.